Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1887-01-05


way that left no doubt, and he was aston
ished at the details of want whose very
existence he, at first, doubted. And the
recital of those details by the earnest
county Judge of Palo Pinto would move
stone to pity, although he made
no effort to excite emotion but SIM
ply to answer fully the at times critical
| interrogstories put TO him. Judge Hen
dry was participant in the Albany con-
vention, and during its session made brief
notes of statements from each delegate
concerning the situation in his county.
These notes the Judge was persuaded to
leave with THE GAZETTE, and he in
| formed US that the statements from each
county were submitted by county judges
and commissioners, as the Albany con-
ventlon would entertain none but official
reports.
| In Palo Pinto county there was raised
500 bales of cotton and 1900 bushels of
corn last year, no wheat and oats at all
being harvested. The granaries, grcan-
ing wta the accumulations of the past,
were rapidly exhausted by the demands
of 8 failure so general throughout the
county, and these who were able to help
their less fortunate neighbors are no
| longer able to do so. The surplus in the
| Earns melted away under the needs
created by a drouth of from twelve to
| eighteen months duration, and those citi-
zens of Palo Pinto, especially, who were
paying annually for homes or living on
rented lands, are in sore need of imme-
date aid; the few who, usually, could
provide farm work are poWerless
to do so, as the continued drouth
prevents farm work and the situation daily
grows more serious, $50 families in that
county being now unable to provide for
themselves or remove to localities where
work might be procured.
Not to amplify this pitiful story, the
best information as yet attainable by THE
GAZETTE puts the number of destitute
families as follows: Callahan, so; Parker,
100; Taylor, 200; Palo Pinto, $50; Cole
man, $50; Jack, 800; Stephens, $50; Run
nels, 200; Jones, 225; Shackelford, $50;
Haskell, so; Yong, $50; Brown, 400;
Eastland, 500; Comanche, 4oO to 500; No
AN, so; Fisher, rs to 100; Erath, $50;
Martin, 10; Hardeman, $50.
To place the proper construction upon
the appeal for aid and to comprehend why
such appeal is made beyond county
boundaries, an acquaintance with the
various counties is necessary. In long
settled and thickly populated sections an
appeal for aid beyond county limits would
DE regarded as discredltable, but even
rich end densely populated counties
would find the burdens of drouth, con-
tinuous for twelve or eighteen mouths,
rather onerous, and such misfortune falls
with crushing effect on sections newly
settled, and populated in the main by poor
people who sought in the outermost coun-
ties to do what men have been
doing for fifty years in Texas, viz, max
ing homes and contributing to the devel-
opment and growth and greatness of the
state.
1t was very unfortunate for the suffer
ing people that exaggerations on the one
hand provoked exaggerations on the
other; it was equally unfortunate that in
some instances local committees, acting
without concert or method, were imposed
on. Now, however, those who are able |
and willing to aid the destitute can do so
in the confidence that their generosity !
win not be in danger of displacement,
for the Albany convention of county
judges systematically arranged for the
disposition of all contributions.
Texss is able to aid these people, and
Texas should do it, and do it prompt |
". These people are not in need |
because of any act of theirs, but be
cause of calamity which no human
effort could avert. The long continued
drouth has emptied the granaries Of
some. of these counties as clean as
though the land had been desolated by
fire or earthquake. There Is need and
there is suffering, and in some of the
counties it is urgent, for in some locali
ties men look upon wives and children
without food, save that which is
stintedly given by neighbors who
themselves look to the future with
serious alarm. Strong men who would
go away to other localities in search of
work dread to leave wives and babies in
the little homes without bread. Men who
have homes paid for grow desperate, and
consider whether they shall carry their |
helpless families to the county site and
leave them as paupers to be cared for
while they seek work and money and
bread wherever among other communi- |
ties it may be found. All these counties |
are not suffering in the same degree and
to the same extent, but there is general
need and, in some, privatioa SO intense
that without aid, without some recogni-
ton of common humanity, there may go
out to the world story of more bitter
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